So I just spent 1.25 hours with my sister trying to help her decide her local election choices. It's an off year, so generally only those of us who are Hard Core about voting bother to do so. That just makes our votes that much more powerful. I appreciate the irony of someone like me, frequent Doomsayer on the sad state of our video poker voting reality, talking about good voting. But I'll do so anyway, cause part of me wants to Hope. /scampers away from Lambert/

Anyway, if you're voting tomorrow, are there any online resources that have helped you make your choices? Please, post them here if so. My sister and I agree that one of the really sucky things about off-year local level voting is how hard it is to find useful information about the candidates. And that problem is getting worse. Judge 4 Yourself is one resource she and I found, but it appears to be regional. I really wish there were more, and if I were an Al Gore elected official, I'd be expanding mandated government websites to include more pages about people's records in government, and also those trying to be so. A pipe dream, I'm sure, but voting blogging is one of the aspects of the blogsphere I'm most proud of and hope grows. Brad remains the intertube's own god when it comes to vote blogging.

SoBe:

Reaction at this busy intersection was mostly positive. There were quite a few horn honks and thumbs up, a couple of thumbs down, but not as many as I had expected. One person, predictably, shouted "get a job!" There's always one asshole who has to remind us of the country's unemployment rate. I'm not being sarcastic here, either: I have yet to attend a rally or visibility event where there wasn't one person shouting "get a job!" Probably the same guy, too.

This is me, making that "she's not wrong" face.

What do you think intelligent alien life would make of us?

I'm a big scifi reader, and I've read countless stories about this question. Seems to me most of the time, writers posit one of two things. Either they would be highly advanced, ethically and morally speaking, because that is a prerequisite to achieving the technology of space travel; or they would be totally predatory, and treat us as we treat "lower" forms of life on this planet. Personally, I'm not excited about the idea that intelligent life would come by for a visit. I'm too embarrassed by our own primitive natures to want to have to explain it to the Vulcans.

This is science fiction thread, so none of that downer stuff about how interstellar travel is impossible or how if other intelligent life is out there we'd have heard it by now. According to this NASA guy, the aliens are already here, btw.

ES&S To Buy Diebold, Blackbox Voting To Sue

Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). According to a Black Box Voting source within the companies, there will be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours. An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most US voting under one privately held manufacturer.

Can we get serious about election integrity already?

The SEIU, Service Emloyees Internal Union, headed by Andy Stern has decided to concentrate its effort, not on the goals and the benefits of the union members, on usurping parts of the UNITE HERE union. SEIU represents over 100 occupations in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The main divisions are health care (around 50% of the union's membership), including hospital, home care and nursing home workers, public services (government employees), and property services (including janitors and security officers). UNITE HERE represents predominantly in the hotel, food services employees with a very strong division of the gaming industry (e.g. Las Vegas).

I'm sure you all recall the early days of the NSA Hoovering up all domestic data warrantless wiretapping scandal, when they referred to it as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and assured us that they were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Naturally, this turned out to be a lie enhanced duplicity technique, because it turns out they were spying on all of us everyday American citizens. Nobody was off the target list, and we were all potential Al-Qaeda operatives.

Now, there's a big hubbub about some sketchy CIA assassination ring, apparently answering to Cheney himself. Nobody's willing to talk about the nitty-gritty details, but it's enough to have even Nancy "off the table" Pelosi spooked or pissed off enough to start publicly discussing how fucked-up it was, whatever "it" was.

The public justification for this shadowy, super-classified, apparently reprehensible death squad?

They were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit. Does anyone seriously doubt that what we'll eventually learn is that they formed a group to assassinate American citizens in the National Interest? Consider this, via TPM:

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization...

As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

Hmm, I wonder...

Interesting times:

(TPM link)

So, as far as I can tell, Rep. Jane Harman [D-Ca] was conspiring with the Israelis to drop some spy charges in exchange for some lobbying on her behalf, and Alberto Gonzales had an NSA warrantless wiretap™ (wait for it) on her phone and overheard the deal.

In exchange for not investigating, Gonzales asked her to attack the NYT's exposé on (wait for it) NSA warrantless wiretapping. The one she had personally requested be held back until before after the 2004 election (Department of With Democrats Like These, anyone?)

And so she goes free, although the Israelis didn't get her that committee chair she wanted in the first place.

One has to wonder just how much dirt Hoover Gonzales and Rove had on everyone in Washington, and more importantly, how many other favors they blackmailed out of people. And it certainly explains some of those bizarre, neo-Maoist ritual apologies.

*BOOP*

Brad DeLong has, this morning, put up a rather oblique post citing the lyrics of a classic song (Last.fm Chumbawumba song link) about Nedd Ludd. And immediately after, one about Swing. I can hardly imagine the motivation for it at this moment.

Wikipedia has this interesting comment about the Luddites that may put Brad's post into a certain perspective:

Thompson argues that it was the newly-introduced economic system that the Luddites were protesting. For example, the Luddite song, "General Ludd's Triumph":

So I was planning to write a long, witty song-and-dance about a theme to which I've occasionally alluded lately: the importance of globalization in this bailout crisis. But then I decided I'd spare the words and write it out as a few easy and very approximate steps.

Let it not be said that Mandos does not bring the yum, if absurdly spicy food is to your taste. Let it also not be said that Mandos is not up on his Bahb Dohle impressions.

I was visiting close relatives very recently and raided the pantry to make dinner completely out of ad hoc ingredients which I didn't measure, and hence what I made will never be made again. If I could find a few spoonfuls at the bottom of an old jar, I used it. And if I may say so myself, it was delicious, a culinary leprechaun of deliciousness that has been let go for all eternity. But here is the vague guideline from memory on how to repeat this experiment.

Now, Bob Somerby has an excellent post up about the obsession with earmarks:

Those high-profile spending measures total nearly $2 trillion. By way of contrast, the EARMARKS which have Sheneman frightened total $7.7 billion. (No one has made the slightest attempt to show how much of that is “wasteful.”) But guess what? Trillions are much larger than billions! In fact, those EARMARKS represent roughly one two hundred and fiftieth of the total spending in these high-profiles measures. That amounts to one quarter of one percent—one dollar of every 250.

But to Sheneman, these EARMARKS are larger than human life. They may swallow the White House itself.

Department of NOW NOW NOW NOW

Thus Sprach Rep. Paul Kanjorski: It (was) the End of the World as We Know It..

From BoingBoing, and Capitalism Gone Wild

The Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair, Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, tells C-Span how the world economy almost collapsed in a matter of hours.

..2 minutes and 15 seconds into the tape [he] reveals what Paulson and Bernanke told congress that shocked them into supporting the first $700 billion bailout:

On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two. Money was being removed electronically.

So I got this in an email about Obama's speech and plan to save the economy today. I'm going to just focus on this one part:

Making the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America's medical records are computerized.

Color me totally unimpressed. Discussing it with some people, I'm told that doing so will "reduce costs" by cutting down on fraud and redundancy, thus making insurance more affordable. Anyone want to take the bet, that 5 years from now, barring real reform of the insurance industry, costs won't have gone down?

And anyway, it's not the "cost" of health care that's killing me, it's the complete lack, and inability to get insurance if I do pay out of pocket for care and am diagnosed with some condition. When, if ever, is Obama going to do anything about that? Is it really too much to ask, that he mandate that insurance companies must offer coverage at the same rates to all people? I guess so. I know better than to expect the words "universal single payer" to ever come from Obama's lips/Presidential Signing pen.

Being especially cynical, and recalling all the many, many stories about lost, hacked and disrupted mega-databases in both the government and private sector these last few years, I'm also going to add that I bet "total computerization" of records will make things worse, in more cases than it makes better. And I bet if I followed the money trail after this initiative gets going, at the bottom end will be some big donor, who runs a computerization service or sells the software for it. Really, it's such an absurd idea to tout as "great for the economy," I can't believe there's another ultimate motivation to include it in these early speeches.

OK, I'm no economist. And hey! I'm really fucking glad! Next to "child rapist" and "warmonger," I can hardly think of a more despicable title to hold right now. What I'm going to write here is likely flawed, unrealistic, naive, and all that other stuff Serious People tell me at the cocktail parties when I've had a few too many and start talking like this. But I'd like to stimulate some conversation about what Our Leaderz can do right now, to help our economy, and not just that of their richee buddies and buttboi friends. Because believe it or not (heh), I'm told that part of the problem with the incoming bunch is that they, um, well...don't really know what to do, when it comes to fixing the actual majority economy. You're shocked to hear that, I'm sure.

Today, when most of you get to work, the Canadian polls will open. Aux urnes! as they say in French. So, I've been in Canada for the past week or so, and I had grand plans of not only finishing off some posts which I owe some people, but writing a sort of last-days political travelogue of the Canadian election, as I've been wandering around southern and eastern Ontario. But not least due to the surprising spottiness of Internet access, I have failed. *hangs head*

I'm out in the garden today and so I don't really have time to get into this. But if true I'd be unsurprised. It reminds me of bad Clancy novels, or something. Anyway, via Avedon, haxxorwarz:

Last week, VR interviewed GOP Cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore about the upcoming election and his testimony in the new Ohio litigation to take depositions of Karl Rove and others.

The video is posted in full below with ten short clips for You Tube viewing. This interview is so important and explosive that we urge everyone to watch it.

Spoonamore says that the GOP wanted e-voting to steal elections but now foreign governments will be hacking and the winner will be determined by the best hackers. He says that if the GOP wins the hacking competition, McCain will win 51.2 percent with three electoral votes over Obama, and it will be a stolen election.

Spoon also makes a crucial point about the people who have been implicated in much of the election theft: "They are religious extremists." He names those who know about stolen elections, and he insists that the only way to protect this election is with paper ballots, hand-counted.

For a good long while before the 30s, some people thought they could create wealth while not paying anybody, and it all came crashing down. Then they were made to pay people, for their own good. Years later, they tried to realize the dream of not paying anybody a second time around, with even cleverer not paying anybody techniques. Needless to say, it still didn't work, but they'll get to try again. And they got rich anyway.

Debate over its future lingers in background as two-tier system gains appeal among patients

Queen's Park Bureau

It was an icy Feb. 3 when Graham Martin slipped and fell hard on his elbow, jamming his arm up into his shoulder and painfully tearing a tendon and shoulder muscles.

Martin, a police officer, was feeding the horses at his country home overlooking Sturgeon Lake near Fenelon Falls when the accident happened.

The nagging injury has pushed the 55-year-old – who might not get surgery until he's 57 – squarely into the debate about Canada's medicare system.

[Newberry's got the best perspective and policy, and, unlike some (me) knows finance. So, I urge you to drop by listen, learn, and lend perspective. -- lambert]

At 4:30p Eastern time today, noted economic writer and friend of this blog, Stirling Newberry will be hosting a live chat at Firedoglake. He's encouraging anyone with questions or comments to come by and join the conversation. Take a moment out of your day and stop by; I promise you'll learn something.

Via Democracy Now!

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations

Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

Fascism! Smell it!

I could probably find one in Sumerian, but I'm sure you readers of the Classics know a better example. In a fair world, BAR authors would be highly paid journalists at national news desks:

by Kesi Foster

Higher education is an American Dream, but may become a "Dream deferred" for community college students. The banks are the villains. "The following lenders have started turning away from community college students: Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust, and PNC. In the case of Citibank, it has stopped offering loans to all community college students in the state of California," writes the author, a community college student. When the bankers turn their backs on struggling community college students, "does that not mean we should have no problem turning our backs on the banks when they want the government to bail them out? "

And so it begins. I expect this to happen over and over again in the coming Obama administration, at both the federal level as well as the corporate. (is there a difference?) The "excuse" that "there just isn't enough money/credit/liquidity" will be employed to slash social program after program, and the poor will bear the greatest brunt. But interest on the debt, paid to foreign governments and the superwealthy? Oh, that will be paid. And the MIC budget? Count on that to continue to grow. Social Security? Feh, there's still plenty of fat there that can be cut, and I don't expect Dems to stand up for it, as they are shown the real books that the Bush regime has kept from their incurious eyes these last eight years. Perhaps it will be a 'nasty surprise' to him, or perhaps his Crack SuperSmart UChicago Economic team will be all ready, handing over a "plan" on Day 1, in which they relate that for the Good of the Nation, the poor shall be required to turn over their first born for slavery "national service" in which they are all shipped to Dubai to work on the New Pyramids.

Cheney heads to ex-Soviet nations in show of support

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Vice President Dick Cheney departs Tuesday on a four-nation tour to support US allies Georgia and Ukraine amid a chill in relations with Russia over its military conflict with Georgia.

Because we don't have enough trouble.

Anyone who has been reading TalkLeft since the announcement that Sarah Palin was the VP nominee for the Republicans has probably noticed a change in tone and demeanor in Jeralyn's posts. She posted a few things about her then posted that she wouldn't be posting anything about her-then BOOM!!!

Very recently, this thread on Clinton Derangement Syndrome erupted into flame over Bill Clinton's famous Sister Souljah Moment when I mentioned it as a possible cause of dissatisfaction with him felt by some people (me included) during his presidency. You know, things were different then, and we never imagined things could get this bad. Ah, the memories.